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It's Official: The Next Recession Will Definitely Not Happen In 2018
Last month we remarked on PhD economists’ uncanny ability to make bad predictions.
As a rule, the only people worse at their jobs than weathermen are economists and the only real difference between the two professions is that when the weatherman gets it wrong, you get caught in the rain without an umbrella, but when an economist that someone installed in the Eccles Building gets it wrong, there’s the very real potential for the financial universe to collapse. Here’s how we summed up the profession:
If PhD economists were serious about getting things right, they would have a tough job. That goes double for PhD economists charged with making policy decisions based on their conclusions.
That’s because economics (like sociology and political science and astrology) isn’t a real science. It’s a pseudo-science. And as is the case with other pseudo-sciences, it’s flat out impossible to discover laws and immutable truths, no matter what anyone told you in your undergrad economics course.
Of course PhD economists aren’t really serious about getting things right, which means that in reality, their jobs are remarkably easy. Here’s the job description: make predictions that are almost never right and then make up any reason you want to explain away the fact that you were wrong. These explanations run the gamut from intentional obfuscation via opaque statistical tinkering (“residual seasonality”) to comically absurd attempts to turn common sense into an excuse for poor outcomes (“snow in the winter”).
We delivered that stinging indictment of the pseudoscience that is economics on the way to noting that back in January, some 75% of experts said the Fed would have hiked by now. Considering that rather abysmal track record, we encourage you to take the following with a grain of salt (or two grains, or a whole shaker full).
Via Bloomberg:
Some advice for President Barack Obama's successor: bring a plan to fight the next recession.
That's one conclusion drawn from a survey of economists Sept. 4-9, where the median forecast of 31 respondents has the next downturn occurring in 2018.
Assuming the collective wisdom of economists is right—which is a generous assumption given that predicting business cycles isn't exactly a cakewalk (ZH: manipulating business cycles isn’t a “cakewalk” either and economists try that too) —it puts the current expansion on track to have a lifespan of about nine years. That's a pretty good run, though the honor of the longest expansion on record would still belong to the decade that ended in March 2001.
The survey suggests that the next U.S. president will have just one calendar year to get settled before a downturn occurs. They may want to solicit some advice from Obama, who took office in January 2009, during the deepest recession in the post-World War II era.
So there you have it, rock solid proof that there will be no recession in 2018. However things are looking pretty scary for 2021 and 2022 because as you can see from the graph shown above, only 1 economist is betting on a downturn in either of those years, meaning a recession is a virtual certainty.
As Bloomberg goes on to note, the economists surveyed "said there's a 10 percent chance of a U.S. recession within the next 12 months," which is particularly amusing because if anyone was being honest at the BEA (i.e. if someone hadn't brought out "residual seasonality" to explain why GDP data needs to be double-adjusted), the US would have been one quarter of bad "weather" away from a recession earlier this year.
It's also worth noting that the experts polled don't seem to think much of the myriad risk factors staring them squarely in the face; risk factors like a rapidly decelerating China, slumping global demand, chronically depressed global trade, a worldwide deflationary supply glut, and a veritable meltdown in emerging markets. Indeed some of those factors were recently cited by Citi's pet rock-hating chief economist Willem Buiter who, as Bloomberg also points out, this week "assigned a 55 percent chance to some form of global recession in the next couple years." Which brings us to the punchline. The fourth sentence from the top in the Buiter's note predicting better than even odds for a global recession reads as follows:
Economics isn’t rocket science, and even rockets frequently land in the wrong place or explode in mid-air.
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What does Gartman say?...
But remember we also in recovery year 7
Layoff / Closing List: http://www.dailyjobcuts.com
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There won't be an economy by 2021. Current, unsustainable debt loads mandate this.
2018...so helpful... I must rememer not to put that one in my diary... Any day specifically that it won't be happening?
that's a typo; its meant to read 2180
don't worry about it
Gartman is funny, how the god damn PHUCK does he get air time with with CNBC, he is always WRONG! on his calls.
One Market analyst I listen to ==> http://www.bit.ly/1fMcakI his calls are rediculously accurate. He basically has a great knowledge on what is coming next and has been 99% right in this bull market.
He called the bottomon the AAPL chart too. I think this market is getting ready to rally hard, after an OCT bottom.
Remember SEPTEMBER are known to be BULL killers if you look back the LAST 50 years.
For now their game is get everyone short, TRAP THEM and then take us up higher!! yes that old chest nut. Fool me once, shame on you. Then....fool me twice SHAME ON ME!
Risk factors? PPT to the rescue! Buy the dips.
"Amused to Death".
Does that an admission that we are in one now and there is one to come?
It's illegal to admit you are in one until you are out of one, then you explain how nasty it was and how glad you are that it's over. It then is called a recovery, rinse and repeat and collect your paycheck.
I'm just hoping things will hold together till March of 2016 but IMHO well be lucky to make it to Ocotober of 2015.
It not just the Chinese that have to worry about a loss of the "Mandate of Heaven." All of the self made central control self appointed emperors are facing birds returning to the roost. It could be a fustercluck of immense proportions hitting all at once.
The announcement by the PBOC that gold is now legal tender caused my to pucker in my neether regions.
The simple description of the U.S. financial philosophy --- Trickle up.
In the past I must have accessed an internet link and made the mistake of giving out my E-mail address to read an article (or something). As a result I'm bombarded daily now, with 100's of E-mails from people who call themselves financial analysts and economists, and they are all screaming in my ear - telling me I must take action ***now*** to save myself and my family from the coming apocolypse.
A 2015 recession was predicted in Q4 of 2014 by the Levy Group. Bitchezzz.
We are not going to escape the contagion spreading around the globe as we speak. Recession will begin in the U.S. in Q4 or Q1 of '16.
Peter Schiff has said that the fed can't and won't raise interest. Looks like he was right again.
And it's QE to infinity.
Both Richard Duncan and Peter Schiff say QE4 is 100% assured.
So it's QE to infinity and 0% rates until the dollar bust.
The majority people still believe that rates will rise.
When everyone realizes the Fed is stuck at 0 and QEing to infinity everyone will trade appropriately.
And that appropriate trade will be?
Medical training and supplies.
Bought another 10-pak of chest tubes last week; things are looking serious.
Yeah, always at some point in the future, never RIGHT FUCKING NOW AND THE PAST 7 YEARS!
Worthless mandarin toadies!
Odd....'cause I'm purdy sure the world is still in the 2008 recession we had to have. Now considering the average time between one crash and the next is aboot 7 years, it's time for another recession while currently still in recession.
2022 bitcoin will mostly all be mined and the mini-iceage will have set in. Anyhow WWIII will probably over by then, and most of the survivors will still be underground. Hillary Clinton as with most politicians will have been refused access to the underground habitat and have died along with all the people she committed crimes against. I'll be back on Q99X2 drinking martinis (we can drink on Q99X2 but not Earth) and watching reruns of I love Lucy and Leave It to Beaver.
So, the new "meme": the next puppet to "occupy" the Dark House at 1600 Transylvania Av needs to bring a new "plan".
Absolutely, unequivocally the smellyish "eCONomist" BS to date!
3+ years ago I was DECLARING to a younger brother in an email that the scum-sucking scallywags at the "Fraud Preserve" have nothing left but "QE" to infinity.
And I'm not even a college grad with an indischareable student loan!
Do you mean the next one, like after the one we're in, or the one after that?
I am an Economist (BS & MA) and since February 2015, I have predicting that the next Offishul recession will begin in the second or 3rd quarter of 2016. I stand by that.
Here is some evidence the Fed may have forgotten about.
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/05/29/mergers-and-acquisitions-set-record...
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/02/20/fed-warns-of-two-bubbles/
http://michaelekelley.com/2015/02/24/would-you-pay-39-more-than-asked/
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-07-27/when-will-we-ever-learn/
Here is how to respond.
http://michaelekelley.com/2014/10/16/8-things-to-do-when-recession-happens/
Here is how to get your mind off this stuff.
http://michaelekelley.com/category/humor/
Good luck!
Fuck Gartman poolshark, I want to know what the silver haired darkie at the IMF says.
Anyone that thinks that they can use models to predict nonlinear systems is a nutcase. Just a 2 variable complex system is impossible to predict.